A lot of people have opinions about the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie trailer that dropped on Tuesday, and none of them are good. That includes John Mathieson, the director of photography for rival video game-based movie “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.”
“Funny enough, I was offered [‘Sonic the Hedgehog’] and after watching the trailer I thought I’m so glad we don’t look like that,” Mathieson told Newsweek in a recent interview.
Mathieson believes his movie has a visual edge because it was shot on traditional film while “Sonic” was apparently filmed digitally. Digital cameras don’t capture colors well, he said, especially blues and cyan.
“If all we’re talking about is how these two films look, our film is better than ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ and I’m sorry, I don’t care who I upset by saying that, but I think it looks better,” he said. “There’s no reason why you can’t shoot a film like [‘Detective Pikachu’] or ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ on film. If you had, [‘Sonic the Hedgehog’] would look more realistic. I look at ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ and I just go ‘yeah, whatever.’”
Many “Sonic” fans expressed their disappointment in the trailer on social media after its launch. They were especially put-off by the speedster’s human-like teeth. The outcry was great enough that the film’s director, Jeff Fowler, promised to change the design before the movie comes to theaters in November.
“The message is loud and clear,” he wrote on Twitter Thursday. “You aren’t happy with the design & you want changes. It’s going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be…#sonicmovie #gottafixfast.”